McAfee - 12 Million New IP Addressees Hacked in Q1 2009

McAfee has recently released the threat report for Q1 2009 that says cyber criminals took control of nearly 12 Million new IP addresses during the first three months of this year.

The reports also highlights that malware writers launched more attacks against servers hosting legitimate content to increase the rate of malicious activities.

Besides, some security experts have pointed out that the drastic downfall in spam levels to an estimated 60% after the shutdown of McColo Corp. in November 2008 seems to be again rising due to the fast expansion of botnets during Q1 2009.

McAfee also warns against the threat of rising spam levels in coming months as spammers are putting in everything to restore the lost infrastructure after McColo shutdown. The spam volume will reach the previous levels, said the security company, as reported by vnunet on May 5, 2009.

Security officials at McAfee have raised concerns that the fast expanding bot network will facilitate cyber criminals to flood the Internet with malware.

The threat report also contains information about viruses besides botnets and malware. It says Koobface virus resurfaced and over 800 new variants of the virus were detected in March 2009. Despite making huge hue and cry, Conficker worm represented a small subset of total threat reports. A vector used by Conficker variants, Autorun malware, accounted for 10% of the total detections reported in the first three months of 2009.

McAfee's threat report has placed the US on top in the list of countries that reported highest infections. This indicates that spammers and malware distributors are using the US and neighboring countries to conduct their nebulous activities. The reason for high infection in these countries is lack of security systems and indifference to updates.

Moreover, cyber criminals are becoming more sophisticated and advanced in their techniques by increasingly employing URL redirects and Web 2.0 sites. This enabled them to keep their locations and malicious activities hidden from security agencies, said the security vendor.

In fact, security agencies are facing many difficulties in tracing the exact locations of malicious attacks as malware writers are continuously improving their tricking techniques. This concern is commonly shared by other security companies including Fortinet apart from McAfee.

Related article: McAfee Alerts Windows about Accessibility Hole in Vista

» SPAMfighter News - 5/12/2009